Mr. Milinda Moragoda, the UPFA’s candidate for the Mayor of Colombo, took expensive advertisements last week extolling old-style politics that did not flow from the barrel of a gun. Although Moragoda leads his own political party, whimsically named the Ceylon National Congress after the organization so-named on the Indian model by this country’s original Independence seekers (we will not call them fighters as there was no fight for Independence here as in India), he has joined the SLFP for purposes of this election. That was probably a requirement imposed on him by the ruling Establishment. It is no secret that the president and his brother, Gotabhaya, who as head of the Urban Development Authority has big plans for the capital city, persuaded Moragoda who is undoubtedly a man of both capacity and peace to run for a position which has as much power and influence as a top cabinet ministry. He has accepted the challenge holding out the prospect of a clean election.

The UNP’s Mayoral candidate, Mohamed Muzammil, has in a statement we run today indicated his happiness at Moragoda being his opponent and promised to fight clean. This is an election the UNP has to win. As we pointed out last week, it was with the Colombo Municipal Council election that followed Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike’s 1956 landslide that the UNP established that the ``last nail had NOT been driven into its coffin’’ as had been claimed. J.R. Jayewardene and V.A. Sugathadasa performed the magic with Sugathadasa becoming Mayor. The green party is not just in bad shape but in terrible shape as everybody knows. The battle now will be to get its supporters, and there are many of them in Colombo, to the polls. The reports are that Muzammil was the unanimous choice of the nominations committee and although the UNP candidate, like Moragoda, failed to get himself elected to parliament last time round. But he like his opponent is a formidable campaigner. He is also fortunate that ex-MP Mohamed Maharoof, also an aspirant for the UNP ticket for the mayoralty, has joined the SLFP. It is better for the greens that he did so now rather than defect should he have got himself elected on their ticket. Remember Mayor A.H.M. Fowzie did that when Mr. Felix Dias Bandaranaike was Minister of Local Government and the chief power broker of the Sirima Bandaranaike government?

Moragoda, like Fowzie, was also was blooded in politics by the UNP. He’s had a long and close association with Mr. Sirisena Cooray, the Premadasa loyalist, who once served as Mayor of Colombo and has often told intimates that he preferred that job to the ministerial throne bestowed on him by Premadasa. Cooray’s son has joined the SLFP and is on the UPFA’s Colombo slate. So has Mrs. Yamuna Ganeshalingam, the widow of a former UNP Mayor of Colombo, during the Premadasa era. Moragoda’s campaign advertisements have been done by Irvin Weerackody of Phoenix Ogilvy, a member of the UNP Working Committee once-upon-a-time and that party’s Maharagama organizer. He had a role in JRJ’s winning campaign of 1977. So lots of old green warhorses, like those who defected to Mahinda Rajapaksa, are now on the other side of the political fence and Moragoda, who had huge pictorial hoardings extolling the J.R. Jayewardene – Bernard Soysa relationship in Colombo East, will be able to advance his agenda of compromise rather than confrontation.

It will be an uphill battle for the UNP not only in Colombo but also in some of its other strongholds like Negombo and Kandy where municipal elections are being fought. President Rajapaksa knows better than most that the winning the war magic is now wearing thin in the face of issues like the cost of living. While even the faithful will not claim that the UNP was squeaky clean in office, what is happening in India today will inspire anti-corruption activists. The voters will be reminded that the ruling party took into a warm embrace the trishaw driver-led group of independents Sirisena Cooray and the UNP propelled into office after their own nomination list was rejected at the last CMC election. Colombo was allowed to suffer the consequences of that expediency for an inordinately long time before former Mayor Omar Kamil (also an UNPer!) was finally brought in as special city administrator to infuse some method into the madness that followed.

Muzammil knows that if he can lead the UNP to victory at the CMC, he would become the party’s Muslim leader. Given the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress’ insistence, despite its membership of the central government, that it would paddle its own canoe at the October local elections, there will be some splitting of Colombo’s formidable Muslim vote bank. That would be largely to the UNP’s advantage many analysts believe. Colombo has had Muslim Mayors, M.H. Mohamed, A.H.M. Fowzie and Jabir. A. Cader among them, and there were many Muslim aspirants for the Mayoral slot of both major contending parties. The two-way traffic between the UNP and SLFP over the years support the contention that there is little or no ideological divide between them and given the right conditions both can work with each other.

This third and final round of local elections can be expected to attract more interest than the earlier two. It was the perceived strength of the UNP in many municipal and urban council areas that motivated the government, utilizing its handicap of being in office, not to include these local bodies in the first round of elections. Experience has shown rulers that concentrated rather than dispersed firepower yield the best election results. The government could not have its way only in the north the last time round despite the intensity of the campaign and the goodies that were freely handed out. Showing powerful governments that they are not as popular as they would like to be is one way for voters in any democracy to extract better governance if not exactly good governance from their rulers. But for that to be possible the opposition must demonstrate at least some degree of vigor which has been sadly lacking in the UNP. The leadership divisions that appear to have been submerged at least for the time being must not be allowed to surface at this time. The good of the UNP demands that whether its activists are pro or anti Ranil Wickremesinghe, the interest of the party and its candidates at these elections are held paramount.